Targeting Bad Employers: There May Be an App for That

U.S. companies spent $467 million settling employee lawsuit related to wage and hour violations in 2012.

The Department of Labor is raising the ante on employers who
commit wage and hour violations. It recently announced a contest that appears
to be intended to shame employers into compliance. The DOL is asking the public
to help develop "an innovative tool that lets an informed consumer find out if
a business is obeying the law when it comes to paying workers properly."

The Fair Labor Standard Act requires employers to follow
certain rules regarding record keeping, minimum
wage, employee breaks, and overtime pay. For instance, overtime pay at a
rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay is required
after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

U.S. companies spent $467
million settling employee lawsuit related to wage and hour violations in
2012. The majority of the companies were
also faced investigations by the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Compliance
division.

The app contest is the latest attempt by the DOL to step up
enforcement of federal employment
laws. But it is not the first time it has turned to technology. In 2011,
the agency launched a smartphone application that allows workers to
independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed.
The information could then be used during a Wage and Hour Division
investigation when an employer has failed to maintain accurate employment
records.

With the goal of helping job applications evaluate employers
and consumers "decide where to spend their hard-earned wages," the latest app
will combine publicly-available enforcement data from the Wage and Hour
Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with other
publicly available consumer ratings web sites like Yelp and mapping tools like
Google Maps.

But the app will not necessarily be limited to DOL
enforcement actions. According to the DOL's application requirements, the app
could also provide users with access to other data sets, such as state
licensing agencies, state health boards, and environmental data.

For New Jersey employers and their attorneys, the DOL's app
should be concerning. The agency has not stated how information uploaded to the
app will be verified, if at all. Moreover, the DOL does not state whether there
will be a mechanism to challenge or remove information that turns out to be
misleading or inaccurate.

The contest is ongoing and ends in October.

Donald
Scarinci is a New Jersey lawyer and managing partner of Scarinci Hollenbeck,
LLC a regional law firm with offices in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
His columns feature legal issues in the news and articles about the business
and practice of law. He also writes regularly in Politicker NJ and the
Constitutional Law Reporter.